Katie

“I love you, and I love the world, and I love it more with every new inch I discover. But you are a black boy, and you must be responsible for your body in a way that other boys cannot know. Indeed, you must be responsible for the worst actions of other black bodies, which, somehow, will always be assigned to you. And you must be responsible for the bodies of the powerful -- the policeman who cracks you with a nightstick will quickly find his excuse in your furtive movements.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be.”
― Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation

“A smell of sandalwood boxes, a kind of glaze on the air from all the chintzes numbed his earthy vitality, he became all ribs and uniform.”
― Elizabeth Bowen, The Last September

“I tell you this because you must understand, no matter the point of our talk, that I didn't always have things, but I had people -- I always had people. I had a mother and father who I would match against any other. I had a brother who looked out for me all through college. I had The Mecca that directed me. I had friends who would leap in front of a bus for me. You need to know that I was loved, that whatever my lack of religious feeling, I have always loved my people and that broad love is directly related to the specific love I feel for you.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me